


i like you (a hole lot)

by arabmorgan



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: "The complete contents of Yugyeom’s lungs whoosh out into the open in a single breath as he watches the glass doors swing shut behind the most attractive human being to ever set foot in any Krispy Kreme outlet."Or, Yugyeom likes Bambam, but Bambam likes doughnuts.





	i like you (a hole lot)

Look, if there’s one thing Yugyeom has learnt from his year-long stint at Krispy Kreme, it’s that people are suckers – absolute _suckers_ – for discounts of any kind.

He can’t for the life of him fathom the _logic_ behind buying something he wouldn’t originally have bought in the first place just because it’s a little cheaper for a short amount of time, but maybe that’s just the impoverished student in him talking. Because numbers don’t lie, and the numbers say quite clearly that promotions draw the customers in like flies to honey.

Not that it’s completely uncommon for clueless customers to walk in during promotion periods, but it’s certainly uncommon for said customers to be strikingly handsome, utterly foreign, and wholly memorable.

The first (and _only_ , thus far) exhibit being the silver-haired, blue-eyed boy standing before the counter right now, mouth gaping in shock as Yugyeom patiently repeats the current promotion going on for the second time.

“Sorry, you mean if I buy any six doughnuts, I get six original glazed for _free_?” The boy’s Korean is passable, if heavily accented, his tone lilting all the more in his current state of disbelief, and Yugyeom literally just wants to melt into a puddle right there and then. He never knew a _voice_ could do that to him.

Instead, he nods solemnly, ignoring the thrashing butterflies in his stomach when the boy fixes that deep blue gaze on him. “Yes, exactly,” he agrees, even as his mind is saying, _It’s got to be contacts. No way he has natural blue eyes. It’s just contacts. Anyone can wear contacts. Pfft._ “So, would you like to get twelve?”

“Uhh –” Hot Foreign Guy hesitates, eyes scanning the display before him repeatedly before he looks back at Yugyeom, who is giving his best hopeful smile. “I guess?” He’s only a shade shorter than Yugyeom, which honestly has no relevance to anything at all and Yugyeom has a very, very bad feeling that his ears are tinting pink from how hot his face feels.

Somehow, he manages to place the right twelve doughnuts into two boxes without doing anything stupid, like allowing a doughnut to roll off across the floor or something – no mean feat considering he can feel his hands _shaking_ from sheer nerves. Nerves that have no good reason to exist, to be honest. (Why oh _why_ must he be such a drama king?)

And then he’s passing the boxes off to Jinyoung for him to ring up, and that’s that. Hot Foreign Guy moves off and he’s home free.

Except he’s not, because one step from leaving the shop, Hot Foreign Guy turns back around with a smile, catches Yugyeom’s eye, and wiggles the bag in his hands as he says, “Thanks!”

The complete contents of Yugyeom’s lungs whoosh out into the open in a single breath as he watches the glass doors swing shut behind the most attractive human being to ever set foot in any Krispy Kreme outlet. His hand lifts involuntarily in a sort of weak wave goodbye, but said recipient of his wave is no longer looking. Instead, those ridiculously long legs carry him off down the street, and Yugyeom is left to endure Jinyoung’s not-quite mean-spirited ribbing for the rest of the day.

The thing about Yugyeom is that he develops crushes _way_ too easily, but he also somehow manages to uncrush on people in record time. He doesn’t know if he’s just craving the _idea_ of intimacy or if he simply doesn’t have the right temperament for monogamy, but despite his on-and-off crushes for the various and sundry individuals who have crossed his path, he has yet to even dip his toes into the pool of dating.

_Not_ that he is thinking of dating Hot Foreign Guy, whose name he doesn’t even know. He’s just tragically resigned to daydreaming about those plush lips and that distinctly accented voice for the next whole week at least.

(He’s not a creep, honestly. He just _appreciates_ people, and this world needs more appreciation anyway.)

It’ll pass – he’s _sure_ of it – and then it’ll just be another waiting game as to who his next lucky crush will be. (Jackson and Jinyoung have a running pool on whether it’s a guy or a girl each time, so the longer he takes to find his next crush, the larger the pool gets. It’s just as ridiculous as it sounds.)

Except – two days later, the crisp sound of dress shoes on linoleum has Yugyeom hurriedly shoving his phone back into his pocket and pasting a pleasant smile on his face. When he looks up, it’s to find that his possibly sordid daydreams have turned into reality, and his mouth goes so dry he can barely spit out his well-rehearsed, cheery welcome.

“Hi,” Hot Foreign Guy says, almost shyly, as he approaches the counter. “Is the promotion still going on?” Yugyeom barely knows what to focus on – the beauty mark beneath the beautiful boy’s eye that he can’t believe he forgot about, or the V of that sinful black shirt, revealing more of that equally beautiful chest than should be socially acceptable.

Forcing his eyes back up to Hot Foreign Guy’s face – _beauty mark it is_ – Yugyeom manages to let out a croak of assent to accompany his stiff nod. He can feel Jackson’s perplexed stare boring into the side of his skull, but he’s too preoccupied with the matter of silver hair to care about anything else at the moment. Said silver hair is not at all swept back and tightly-gelled like two days ago; instead, it’s soft and fluffy and sticking up, framing Hot Foreign Guy’s forehead in that effortlessly attractive, unstyled bedhead way that makes Yugyeom want to _cry_.

Hot Foreign Guy looks relieved to hear that he will indeed still be getting six free doughnuts – “Oh, good,” he says, with a smile that lights up Yugyeom’s life – and he proceeds to rattle off his six-doughnut order at speed.

Once more, Yugyeom successfully manages not to embarrass himself in front of his crush, and once more he is the recipient of prolonged blue-eyed contact, a bright smile, and a cheery, “Thank you!”

The moment they’re alone in the store once more, Jackson says loudly (and perhaps more resentfully than the situation really warrants), “Hey, _I_ served him too.”

“I’m sure he was thanking both of us,” Yugyeom says dryly, but he is somehow not as bothered as he usually might have been about a bout of impending whining from his older co-worker.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Jackson mutters, but he only sounds amused now, and Yugyeom turns to face him with a suspicious frown adorning his face. “You don’t know this, but he’s passed by our entrance at least twice in the past four hours. I’m like eighty-seven percent sure he only came in this time because he saw that _you’d_ started your shift.”

Yugyeom thinks he might actually pass out from all the blood rushing to his face. “ _What_ ,” he says stupidly, because he doesn’t even know Hot Foreign Guy’s _name_ , and for some reason that fact is extremely important to him. “You’re not wearing your glasses _again_ , hyung. You probably saw the wrong guy. I’m sure he just really likes doughnuts. He finished twelve in two days!”

Jackson shoots him a dirty look, and okay, maybe that quip about his eyesight was a low blow, but Yugyeom highly, _highly_ doubts Hot Foreign Guy has bought twenty-four doughnuts just because he likes Yugyeom’s _face_. No one buys _two dozen_ doughnuts unless they have a love affair with sugar.

Except – three days later, Hot Foreign Guy steps back into Yugyeom’s life for the third time, and Yugyeom’s knuckles whiten on the counter as he feels his knees buckle from the sheer hotness suddenly infiltrating the cramped interior of the store.

The gelled-back silver hair is back with a vengeance, with a matching sultry grey gaze to match – _definitely contacts_ , Yugyeom thinks, but the thought gives him no relief at all – and skilfully tinted, bright pink lips. Blindingly bright, in fact, because he can’t seem to look straight at them without feeling overwhelmed.

“Oh, it’s you,” his traitorous mouth blurts out even before his brain can catch up, and he hears completely unsubtle sputtering laughter somewhere off to his left. He is _so_ going to kill Jackson before the day is over.

But Hot Foreign Guy’s smile only widens at the unprofessional greeting, like he’s pleased to be recognised (as if Yugyeom could ever _not_ recognise him). “Yeah, hi again,” he says, and then there is a very odd pause that hangs in the air between them as the boy seems to, well, _search_ Yugyeom’s eyes, for lack of a better phrase, and maybe he finds what he’s looking for, because he continues with a smooth, “Yugyeom-ssi.”

Yugyeom physically feels his jaw drop open, and from this day on no one should ever call his name again lest he forgets how it felt to hear those two syllables uttered by arguably the most attractive person in existence. It’s not even that Hot Foreign Guy’s voice is particularly deep or raspy or whatever it is that makes other people swoon, but there’s just _something_ about his not-quite mid-range voice and that very faint nasal tone that has him falling.

Sorry, he means _crushing_.

“Ah,” he says blankly, because he is too busy screaming to himself internally that _what the hell he knows my name? He said my name! Oh my god he said my_ name _. Help._ At which point he feels a sharp kick to his ankle courtesy of Jackson Wang, and a sort of choked grunt emerges from his lips that makes Hot Foreign Guy startle slightly, which in turn makes Yugyeom want to hide behind the counter for the rest of eternity.

Instead, he pulls himself together like the high-functioning adult he is and says brightly, “Are you back for another twelve doughnuts, sir?”

To which Hot Foreign Guy nods slowly. “Um, of course. What else would I be here for, right?” he says with a short laugh, and Yugyeom hastily chuckles along with him, albeit a lot more awkwardly. It’s not like he expected anything more, like Hot Foreign Guy professing to like him as much as he likes Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but seriously, how _many_ doughnuts can one guy eat?

It’s odd though, how Hot Foreign Guy lets out an almost inaudible sigh through his nose while picking his doughnuts. Maybe there aren’t enough different flavours to suit him, or his favourite flavour isn’t on display today, or maybe Yugyeom is being too slow with his boxing, and honestly the more he thinks the more self-conscious he feels and why are crushes so _inconvenient_.

“Do you have a favourite, uh, flavour, sir?” he asks, and then immediately curses himself for thinking that making conversation would somehow be less stressful than remaining silent in the presence of Hot Foreign Guy, because it is most definitely _not_.

The other boy looks up at him and half-opens his mouth for a moment (and Yugyeom wants to crumble into the floor at how _cute_ and confused he looks), like he’s surprised that some random doughnut shop worker is actually _speaking_ to him, before he points at one of the summer flavours. “This one,” he replies. “The watermelon one.”

“Oh.” Yugyeom nods vigorously, because he’s not really sure what to say in reply to that, so he settles for a lame, “Good taste.” And then he’s passing the boxes to Jackson and exhaling a huge sigh of relief, except only in his mind because the object of his daydreams is still standing three feet from him, quite within earshot of anything dumb he might say or do.

The last-minute smile at the door is no longer as much of a surprise to Yugyeom, but no less heart-fluttering, and this time the boy lingers for a moment more. “It’s weird when you call me ‘sir,’” he admits, eyes darting about in a sign of nervousness so clear that even Yugyeom catches on, mostly because it is completely at odds with his well-groomed appearance. “I’m Bambam, ’97…um, yeah. See you!”

With that, he’s gone, darting off down the sidewalk, and this time Yugyeom sees him get into a large black car waiting by the curb, ducking his head down smoothly as he gets in. It’s the kind of car that matches his appearance – young and rich – and Yugyeom feels something in his heart pang at the sight.

“Bambam,” he repeats in a daze, until Jackson explodes into a hyena-like howl of laughter and makes him jump about a foot into the air.

“Why did you freeze up like that when he said your name?” Jackson demands, with all the air of someone who already knows the answer, and is asking just for kicks. “You do realise that you’re wearing a nametag, _right_?”

“Shut up,” Yugyeom snaps back, because it’s useless to lie, and he’s still too shaken to even try anyway.

_Bambam_. It’s literally the cutest name in the entire world; he mouths it to himself silently in between customers and loves the way his lips close around it, like he’s a hamster tucking it into his cheeks for safekeeping.

“He’s the same age as me, you know,” he announces to Jinyoung the next day, sounding as proud as if he’d fathered Bambam himself, which – on first thought, not even second – is way too weird to even consider, because what the _heck_.

Jinyoung looks over at him, brows raising in endless judgement. “Who?”

“ _Bambam_ ,” Yugyeom says slowly and distinctly, relishing the feeling of saying the glorious name out loud, a truly dopey smile appearing on his face that makes Jinyoung gag. (Jackson texted him the name of Yugyeom’s Super Highkey Obvious Crush like two seconds after the big reveal anyway, so he’s just screwing around with Yugyeom for the fun of it.)

“Well, you’re going to get over him once he leaves Korea anyway,” Jinyoung says, looking lazily at his phone (as he furiously relays a blow-by-blow live account of this ongoing conversation to Jackson). “Remember how mad you were for that one exchange student last year? Then he went back home and you totally moved on in like three days.”

Yugyeom’s face falls at that cold but truthful assessment, lips pressing together into a despondent pout. “You had a _class_ with Mark hyung,” is what he chooses to focus on instead. “How could you forget his name?”

Jinyoung smirks, eyes crinkling in that sarcastically friendly way that only he can manage. “I didn’t. I just wanted to see if _you_ did.” He doesn’t even flinch when Yugyeom smacks him on the arm, whining all the while.

“Bambam is _different_ ,” he insists, with all the sincerity of a very large puppy, because right now Hot Foreign Guy – a name he will never need to use again now that he has been gifted with the knowledge of _Bambam_ – is a shining beacon in his mind that can never be sullied unless by distance and time. “He’s tall and handsome and he wears these contacts that make him look so _dreamy_ , and he makes my stomach swoop at least sixty metres every time he walks in.”

“That’s _exactly_ what you said about Mark hyung as well,” Jinyoung points out, ever the unwanted voice of reason in Yugyeom’s life. “Except for the tall part, I suppose. And the contacts.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Yugyeom grouches, and then proceeds to pout his way through the rest of the day. Jinyoung is thoroughly unmoved, although a couple of teenage girls who enter in the evening certainly are.

Anyway, the thing about getting someone’s name in parting is that an unspoken expectation is created, in which there will be a subsequent meeting where there will be a chance to use said newly-learned name. This is precisely the reason why Yugyeom spends the next couple of days in a state of heightened awareness, rushing down to the store the moment his classes end and squeaking nervously every time the glass doors are pushed open.

Wednesday passes, then Thursday, and finally Friday. He is disappointed every time.

Saturday rolls around, and Yugyeom slouches into work the absolute picture of misery, so much so that even Jackson doesn’t make any effort to poke fun at the raw, gaping wound that is a certain silver-haired boy’s absence. He’s going to be on shift for eight hours straight, which is a _lot_ of waiting for someone who is waiting in the knowledge that he is most likely going to be let down at the end of the day.

Except, once again – the door opens at a point when the store is otherwise empty, and Yugyeom looks up. It’s almost storybook-like, the way he can suddenly hear his heart pounding a little too loudly in his ears, even as his bright smile melts into a petrified-looking, deer-in-the-headlights expression.

The anxious “Hi!” spills out of his mouth even before Bambam can offer his own greeting, and Yugyeom immediately wants to run out of the backdoor shrieking in humiliation, because for some reason every single thing he does in front of Bambam embarrasses him to no end. (Is he breathing too loudly perhaps? Can Bambam hear him _breathing_? The horror.)

“Hi,” Bambam returns easily as he approaches, clearly not at all under the thrall of the unforgiving nerves slowly squeezing Yugyeom to death right in front of his crush. “I wanted to come back earlier in the week, but I was pretty busy.” He wrinkles his nose at Yugyeom in what is probably supposed to be an apologetic look, but the way his bottom lip is jutting out only makes Yugyeom want to drool on the counter.

“You must really like doughnuts,” Yugyeom blurts, because if he doesn’t blurt everything out as it occurs to him he will never be able to squeeze even a single word out to the living model of perfection that is Bambam.

Bambam looks mildly surprised at that observation, his brows rising ever so slightly – above eyes that are once again blue in colour (not that Yugyeom is intentionally noticing or anything) – as his gaze drops slightly in what looks very much like embarrassment, although Yugyeom has no idea what he might be embarrassed about. His sugar addiction, maybe.

His reply takes a moment to come, and when it does, it’s stilted and uncomfortable, and not at all the kind of tone Yugyeom would expect from someone talking about their favourite food. “Well, yeah,” Bambam starts, with an odd expression on his face. “I mean, you sell good doughnuts here.”

Yugyeom beams at that for no reason at all, because it’s not like _he’s_ the one making the doughnuts every day or anything, and then he peeks over at Jackson, who is making a point of looking so occupied with his phone that it’s obvious he’s eavesdropping as shamelessly as he can. So sue him if he takes that as permission to start up an actual conversation with his favourite customer.

“So, um, are you going to be in Korea for long?” he asks, mostly because he wants to know how many more days he’s going to have to spend pining after his real life fairy tale prince, whom he is unfortunately not fated to romance because he is not trapped behind thorny rose bushes or in an enchanted sleep or raised by a cruel stepmother. Nor is he rich, drop dead gorgeous, or blessed with a superior sense of fashion, any of which might at least put him within uncouth, foot-grabbing distance of Bambam.

“Another week, maybe?” Bambam replies, sounding rather unsure himself. “It all depends on how my work goes, really.”

At that point, Yugyeom sort of expects him to elaborate on said work, and not just because he is parched for every drop of information about Bambam that he can get his grubby hands on – but all Bambam does is to pierce through him with his smoky blue gaze, like he is reading into Yugyeom’s very soul and recognising how Bambam-centric his life currently is. Yugyeom swears he feels his soul ascending in ecstasy as the sharpness of Bambam’s stare cuts him loose from his tether, but mostly he just feels that way because he’s so rooted to the spot that he might as well be soulless.

“Do you,” Bambam finally says, breaking the too-long silence (in the corner, Jackson lets out a quiet breath as the tension seeps out of the air and he can breathe again), “have time for dinner?”

Yugyeom blinks, a pleasant smile on his face as he says, “What?” And then those six words finally make it through the processing mess that is currently his mind and are translated into a language with _actual meaning_ as opposed to just random noises Bambam is emitting from his mouth, and he repeats even more loudly, “ _What_?”

“He means _yes_ ,” comes a muffled cough from Jackson, as his fingers fly across his phone with a devious glee that should have Yugyeom running for the hills. As it is, Yugyeom doesn’t even know Jackson exists at the moment. Every single cell of his brain is occupied in helping him get over the shock that an incredibly handsome foreign boy just _asked him out for dinner_.

Mind you, an incredibly handsome foreign boy that he’s been crushing on for the past week and a half. (If that doesn’t sound like a dream, he doesn’t know what does.)

“I do!” he says loudly, before he can miss this magical moment and Bambam decides to retract his offer in favour of a less ridiculous Krispy Kreme employee. “I have time. I have a lot of time for dinner. _So_ much time.”

Bambam looks so pleased to hear that that Yugyeom has the sudden inane urge to clutch at his chest in an attempt to calm his wildly galloping, clearly out-of-control heart. “I’ll be back to pick you up at, uh, seven then?” he says, all cool and collected and _swoon-worthy_.

They don’t break eye contact until Bambam finally leaves the shop, and then Yugyeom sinks slowly to his knees, both hands clamped tightly over his mouth but not quite muffling the high-pitched scream that forces its way out from between the gaps in his fingers, because Bambam left _without buying any doughnuts_.

Yugyeom distracted Bambam so much that he forgot about his six free doughnuts. Ergo, Yugyeom is more important to Bambam than his favourite food. Ergo, _love is real_.

_What. The heck_ , his mind screams, because how is this real life. How is this _his_ real life.

(Later, Bambam confesses, “I gave most of the doughnuts away to my staff. I only bought so many because you kept smiling at me.”

“I did?” Yugyeom wonders, and figures that it must have been his unstoppable adoration shining through his eyes or something.)

Eventually, he manages to figure out exactly what makes Bambam so different from every other crush he’s ever had. It’s not his stunning good looks, or his impossibly sexy Thai accent, or his warm brown eyes (when he can be persuaded to leave off the contacts, that is).

It’s the fact that he likes Yugyeom back too.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by my own experience at a Krispy Kreme in Taiwan, where I reacted with similar disbelief at the news that I would get 6 original glazed for free if I just bought any 6 doughnuts. (I mean, how do they even make money off that?) It probably speaks volumes about my sugar addiction that I couldn’t stop thinking about that ridiculously good offer and ended up writing a whole fic about it. In Yugyeom’s words: what the heck.
> 
> Fun facts I had in mind while writing but didn’t get to mention:
> 
>   * Bambam is a somewhat well-known Thai rapper who was in Korea to collab with a famous ballad singer, Choi Youngjae 
>   * He was exposed to Korean from an early age due to his mother’s love for Korean dramas, and ended up learning the language on his own for fun 
>   * Jaebum was one of Yugyeom’s first crushes, back when he was in middle school
> 



End file.
